Safety Tips To Prevent Dogs From Attacking Babies

Having a baby soon? Got a dog in the house? This is a major problem and you should train your dog not to bite your new born baby. Find out how in this simple guideline

I get a lot of emails from people who own dogs and are about to have a baby. These people want to make sure they don't have an issue with their dog attacking a baby. This is when you'll need your dog training skills. There is a protocol for dealing with dogs and newborn babies. It starts with never allowing any dog to be unattended around your baby. Not even for 5 seconds. In addition the dog is never allowed in the baby抯 room. Not ever! If you don't own a dog crate it's time to buy one. When parents bring a new born baby home from the hospital they should not allow the dog to come and smell the baby or lick the baby. In fact the dog needs to be trained to stay away from the baby. Your goal is to teach the dog that the baby is your baby and has nothing to do with the dog. The baby should not to be smelled or touched. The dog needs to learn that the baby is a higher ranking member of the family pack and that you (as the pack leader) enforce the babies rank. This is no different than a mother wolf who does not allow other pack members near her newborn pups. The way to set this training up is to take items that have the babies smell on them; baby cloths, baby sheets, dirty diapers etc. Lay them in your living area where the dog is allowed to be. The dog is never to be allowed to go near these items. They can't play with them, or even go over and smell them, they can't go near them. The dog needs to learn that there is a bubble around the smell of a baby that they are not allowed to enter. If they do go to smell them they are corrected. Don't kid yourself that the dog can't smell these items from a across the room and that's as close as they are allowed. When you set up this training the dog should already be on a long line - one of our 20 foot cotton line's that is cut down will work or you can make one. We also sell very nice leather drag lines that are meant for this work. They are 5 feet long. If the dog walks over to smell the diaper he gets a verbal no. If he does not turn and immediately (instantly) leave he gets a serious level 5 correction. If he ignores that correction you immediately correct to level 8 or 9. The goal is to teach the dog that the smell of the baby if Out Of Bounds!! Never leave these baby items lying around when you are out of the room. Treat them just like you treat your baby. The dog and these items are never together - not for a long, long time. Look at it like this. If you can't control the dog staying away from these articles of clothing then you can't control the dog staying away from your baby.